ULI Austin News

UT Austin team named as finalists in ULI’s Hines student urban design competition

AUSTIN, Texas – Feb. 24, 2014 – A team of five graduate students from the University of Texas at Austin (UT) have been named one of four finalist teams in the 12th annual ULI Gerald D. Hines Student Urban Design Competition. The students are competing in a hypothetical urban design project that proposes the redevelopment of Nashville’s historic Sulphur Dell neighborhood.

According to the UT team’s synopsis, “Greenheart Village” establishes a new model of urban living, initiating the rebranding of Nashville as an active, healthy and engaged community. Greenheart Village utilizes adaptive infrastructure to respond to environmental, social and economic changes, fostering an environment that encourages adaptation as people engage their local surroundings and a changing world.

The UT team consists of Yishuen Lo, Master of Landscape Architecture; Mark Christopher Nordby, Master of Architecture; Mitchell Peterson, Master of Architecture; Tarek Salloum, Master of Business Administration; and Katie Summers (Team Leader), Master of Landscape Architecture. The team’s faculty adviser is Simon Atkinson and their professional adviser is Steven Spears of DesignWorkshop.

“All of us at ULI Austin are extremely proud of our local team competing so strongly in such a high-profile event that requires teams to think not only about their proposal itself but also their approach and the multiple stakeholder groups it would be affected by it,” said ULI Austin Executive Director David Steinwedell. “The UT team has worked incredibly hard to get to this stage with a highly competitive proposal that has gained the attention of notable and well-respected architects and planners from around the world, and we wish them the very best as they entire this final stage.”

This year, 163 teams comprising 815 students from 72 universities in the United States and Canada participated in the first round of competition. The other three schools named finalists are Georgia Tech University, Harvard University and the University of Maryland. Each of the four finalist teams will share a $10,000 prize and the winning team will share a $50,000 prize. The final phase is a presentation to the selection jury of the team’s plans on April 2-3 at a public forum in Nashville.